Jill Tarter opened the conference with an entertaining and informative presentation of the history of SETI. That evening, Charles Townes moderated a panel discussion open to the public, "Life in the Cosmos". The next day, Chandra Wickramasinghe talked about cometary panspermia from his unique perspective as a pioneer and founder. Paul Knauth gave a presentation entitled, "Astrobiology in a salty universe" that we found most edifying. And Steven Benner dazzled the audience with fanciful molecular biology involving, for example, six, instead of four, genetic nucleotides. When we asked Benner if he expected the origin of life to be understood and demonstrated during his lifetime, he did not say yes, in spite of his declaration, "I plan to live forever."

With more than 18,000 individual genes, the sponge genome represents a diverse toolkit, coding for many processes that lay the foundations for more complex creatures. These include... analogues of genes that, in organisms with a neuromuscular system, code for muscle tissue and neurons.
Douglas Erwin, a palaeobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, remarks, This flies in the face of what we think of early metazoan evolution.
Charles Marshall, director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, agrees. What I want to know now is what were all these genes doing prior to the advent of sponge.

The report itself states —
Comparative analysis enabled by the sequencing of the sponge genome reveals genomic events linked to the origin and early evolution of animals, including the appearance, expansion and diversification of pan-metazoan transcription factor, signalling pathway and structural genes. This diverse 'toolkit' of genes correlates with critical aspects of all metazoan body plans, and comprises cell cycle control and growth, development, somatic- and germ-cell specification, cell adhesion, innate immunity and allorecognition.
The A. queenslandica genome harbours an extensive repertoire of developmental signalling and transcription factor genes, indicating that the metazoan ancestor had a developmental 'toolkit' similar to that of modern complex bilaterians. The origins of many of these and other genes specific to animal processes such as cell adhesion, and social control of cell proliferation, death and differentiation can be traced to genomic events (gene birth, subfamily expansions, intron gain/loss, and so on) that occurred in the lineage that led to the metazoan ancestor, after animals diverged from their unicellular 'cousins'. [The actual "events" to which these "origins" can be "traced" are not at all clear in darwinan theory. What is "gene birth"? The genes, whole or in a few pieces, are simply there, ready for assembly and deployment.]
From these observations we infer that the metazoan ancestor possessed a complex sensory system, and many of the molecular requirements for neural development and nerve cell function. ...These genomic comparisons reconstruct a common animal ancestor of remarkable complexity. [No other evidence supports this new inference.]

The existence of genes before they are deployed is a jarring puzzle for strict darwinism. The most logical darwinian workaround is ad hoc, unsupported by any other evidence. In the current report the anomaly is glossed over with reference to unseen, unspecified "events". Even without a competing theory, these failings should not be overlooked.

In cosmic ancestry, genes must exist before they are deployed. By horizontal gene transfer (HGT), they can arrive where they may be useful. The "toolkit" in the sponge genome powerfully supports this claim.

The three 'were floored' by the results.... Nineteen of the species, including a squirrel, a small bat, a zebrafish, and a human had RNA viral sequences embedded in their DNA. But equally intriguing was how few different families of RNA viruses turned up: just Bornaviruses and Filoviruses [designated by hexagons and triangles, respectively, in figure]. 'It's a mystery as to why this should be.' ...The integrations happened as long as 40 million years ago, the team reports today in PLOS Pathogens.

The report comments, The conservation of relatively long open reading frames for several of the endogenous sequences, the virus-like protein regions represented, and a potential correlation between their presence and a species' resistance to the diseases caused by these pathogens, are consistent with the notion that their products provide some important biological advantage to the species.

Examples of viruses that become integrated into host genomes are consistent with cosmic ancestry, in which new genetic programs must be acquired by some form of gene transfer. Such examples are accumulating rapidly, and the current report only adds more.

In this case there is no integration of new genes into the nuclear genome of the host, but the evolutionary effect is similar. Rochester calls it a new mechanism for evolution. From our perspective, it is a surprising example of evolution by the [indirect] acquisition of genes [within bacteria] from elsewhere.

With a resolution of around 60 metres per pixel, the images provide a fascinating view of Lutetia.... The planetoid, whose longest axis measures around 126 kilometres, is oval in shape. Its surface is marked by many craters, both large and small.... In some parts, parallel grooves cover the cosmic rock, the origin of which is still unknown.

This is not the first small asteroid, moon or planetoid seen to have parallel grooves. Others include Phoebe and Eros. On Earth, parallel layers in rock are sedimenary deposits formed on the floors of lakes or oceans. We wonder, could Lutetia and the others be fragments of larger bodies where layers of sediment formed in a similar manner?

"The research also demonstrates a new mechanism by which different species of mammals can acquire genes, through non-retroviral integrated RNA viruses, which the UB scientists had previously identified in eukaryotes but was unknown in mammals." (We thought it was already known.) "The research also reveals that existing estimates that filoviruses originated in mammals a few thousand years ago were way off the mark." The researchers think the viruses could be as old as mammals, or over 200 million years old.

But strictly nonbiological ways to make lots of complex organic molecules in space-like environments seem contrived. On Earth, large quantities of such molecules are always "post-biotic." We think the growing evidence for complex organic molecules in space may indicate that life is abundant out there.

Their interest begins in psychology, where B.F. Skinner's stimulus-response theory was influential for decades. That theory was replaced, they say, because of flaws that are closely analogous to flaws in the theory of natural selection. Being little-read in psychology, I did not scrutinize these analogies. I became very alert, however, to the argument from logic that natural selection is inadequate for the task darwinism assigns it.

The logical problem arises, they say, because adaptive traits are usually linked with nonadaptive ones they call "free-riders" — Gould and Lewontin's "spandrels." When traits are linked, darwinian theory cannot demonstrate which trait was actually the one "selected for." Furthermore, reconstructive tests of traits in isolation — "counterfactuals" — are not possible. The authors argue that this situation is lethal for the theory of natural selection, leaving it "empty."

Prima facie, free riding is a counterexample to natural selection.... As far as we can see this objection to natural selection is decisive.

I am strongly inclined to agree. Yet even I am not convinced by this argument. (I think natural selection can work like artificial selection, whose limits point to another fundamental problem.) I am still puzzling over their logic. Having read four negative or ambivalent reviews (before reading the book!), I see no one else who finds this argument as compelling as Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini do. I will stay tuned for possible clarification.

Critics comment that What Darwin Got Wrong deconstructs an out-of-date version of darwinism. Today's version no longer holds that mere point mutations and ultra-gradual change can produce the life around us. It has been amended far beyond that, the critics say. Okay, what are the details of the amended theory? You could say that this pair of darwinists are only prodding their fellows to take the amendment project more seriously and produce some details. But this prodding is answered with the cat-calling and mud-slinging usually reserved for arguments from creationism/ID. It is a crime, apparently, to openly discuss darwinism's need for amendments.

One thing philosophy can contribute to science is to make sure the right question is being asked. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini say, "...What evolutionary theory is supposed to do [is] explain how phenotypic traits are distributed in populations of organisms" (p 110). Elsewhere they ask simply "why there are the phenotypes there are" (p 148). The obvious answer is, because there are the genotypes there are. Fortunately, the authors are fairly well-informed about genomics; they even include a brief discussion of horizontal gene transfer (p 67-69). But they treat all of genomics as merely one of several specialties where amendments to darwinism might arise. I wish they would pursue the genomics angle more directly. For example, "We think the thesis that organisms are random generators of phenotypes can't be sustained even as a first approximation to an explanation of why there are the phenotypes there are" (p 160-161). Phenotypes come from genotypes, so, logically, ...organisms as random generators of genotypes can't be sustained? In that case, where do the genotypes come from? Could they fruitfully follow this thread?

They almost take the hint by insisting that exogenous factors — the environment — cannot be the only thing responsible for shaping life. There must also be endogenous factors — ones that come from within a given species — that also contribute to evolution. I wonder, could genetic progams acquired by horizontal gene transfer provide the endogenous ingredients they need? Am I taking them too literally?

And they observe, "...Before any phenotype can be, so to speak, 'offered' to selection by the environment, a host of internal constraints have to be satisfied and... interactions at many levels have to be stabilized. A variety of filters, some acting in series, some cooperating or interfering, stand between mutations and their expression" (p 39). Could the genomic software management systems that cosmic ancestry requires provide major parts of the needed "internal constraints?"

Later, they comment, "...Extant and extinct life forms are a very tiny subset of what is possible in the abstract" (p 92). I agree that this discrepancy presents major unanswered empirical questions for darwinism. In cosmic ancestry it is an issue of a different sort, perhaps similar to "why is the ratio of gravitational to electrical force what it is and not otherwise?"

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini conclude the main text with the words, "...There isn't any theory of evolution" (p 152). Strong words! And they do not propose any specific alternative. However, as Thomas Kuhn points out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, no scientific theory ever simply falls of its own weight. It must be replaced by a theory perceived to be better. Unfortunately, without offering a better theory, this pair of thoughtful scientists may go unrewarded for their courage.

Meanwhile, I cannot even claim courage. Being outside the scientific establishment, I risk very little by promoting cosmic ancestry. On the other hand, for the list of problems described in What Darwin Got Wrong, cosmic ancestry provides answers. And it allows darwinian natural selection to explain the development of life on Earth, after life arrives, with all of the genetic programming it may express. I think cosmic ancestry is a better theory that could replace the failed parts of darwinism. But it requires us to question a basic assumption — that life can make sustained macroevolutionary progress in a closed system. Would Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini be willing to go that far? I'll ask them!

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong [

Schematic representation of the eukaryotic tree of life showing the distribution of the different components of the integrin adhesion complex. The number of integrin homologs is shown. A black dot indicates the presence of clear homologs; a hollow dot indicates the presence of putative or degenerate homologs. The red line (added) separates metazoans from single-celled or colonial eukaryotes with no obvious use for these proteins. (Figure and caption adapted from Sebé-Pedrós et al., 2010.)

According to darwinism, new genetic programs are composed under the pressure of natural selection. If so, the programs would have to be expressed at every step along the way, as they are composed. Yet these programs are found, fully recognzable, in species that apparently never expressed them (species listed below the red line in the figure.) Moreover, evidence for their darwinian stepwise composing is not found, anywhere. The programs have no detectable "origin". For darwinism this situation is paradoxical.

However, in cosmic ancestry, "new" genetic programs are actually as old as life itself. They only appear to be new when first expressed in a developing environment like Earth's biosphere. Finding genes for the the integrin adhesion complex below the red line is only the latest example of genes apparently much older than darwinism predicts. We would not be surprised to find versions of Earthlike metazoan genes even among primitive species on other planets.